The Colombian government on Wednesday suspended its ceasefire with the National Liberation Army (ELN), due to the refusal of this Guevarist guerrilla to participate in the six-month bilateral truce announced by the president on New Year’s Eve .
“Faced with the position publicly assumed yesterday […] we have decided to suspend the legal effects of the decree “establishing a bilateral truce with the ELN from 1er January until June 30, Interior Minister Alfonso Prada, accompanied by the military command and the Minister of Defense, told the press.
“The issue will be addressed again in a new round of negotiations”, which is to be held in Mexico on a date yet to be determined, he added.
The first left-wing government in the history of Colombia, which took office on August 7, resumed peace talks in November with the ELN, the last guerrilla still active, suspended by the former conservative government of Ivan Duque ( 2018-2022).
The ELN, which has some 3,500 fighters and a vast network of collaborators according to independent estimates, was founded in 1964 by trade unionists and students sympathizing with Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Cuban revolution, and liberation theology. It operates in at least 22 of Colombia’s 32 departments, and profits from drug trafficking and illegal mining.
Tuesday in a statement posted on social networks and signed by its “central command”, the ELN said that it had “not discussed with the government of Gustavo Petro any proposal for a bilateral ceasefire, it does not there is therefore still no agreement on this question”.
“During the last round of negotiations that took place in Venezuela and ended on December 12, only what had been announced […] has been the subject of an agreement”.
The ELN only complies “with what was discussed and agreed at the dialogue table in which we participate. A unilateral government decree cannot be accepted as (constituting) an agreement,” the rebel group said.
As part of an ambitious so-called “total peace” initiative, Mr. Petro is also seeking to negotiate with the dissident rebels of the FARC (who reject the peace agreement signed in 2016 with this Marxist guerrilla), as well as with other armed groups, who are fighting over cocaine trafficking, of which Colombia is the world’s largest producer.
The six-month bilateral ceasefire announced by the government involved, in addition to the ELN, the two main factions of the FARC dissident (the Segunda Marquetalia and the Central Staff), the AGC (self-defense militias Gaitanists from Colombia, far-right paramilitaries) and the Clan del Golfo, the biggest drug gang in the country.
Only the ELN publicly rejected this announcement.